Activated Physical Therapy

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Activated Physical Therapy

Activatedpt.com

05/24/2026

After 16 years of treating chronic pain and stress, the pattern I see most is women chasing symptoms while stuck in a loop they can’t see.

The world gets smaller. Anxiety starts making the decisions. Good moments don’t quite land the way they used to.

My work is getting to the depth of the loop, not just symptoms on the surface.

Intensives now open for summer. DM to apply.

05/22/2026

You’re not a mindset drop out, I promise.

Mindset alone can’t pull you out of sympathetic dominance…

you’re throwing rewiring work at a system that’s become sensitive, permeable, and excited about being overprotective.

You’re not failing. You’re working against the biology of how the brain prioritizes survival.
This is what I’ve built my method around.

🫶🏽 your PT bestie

05/19/2026

The loudest pushback I’m seeing to this new research is what about the body?

Is trauma stored in your hips?

Here’s what I tell my patients:
After an injury, trauma, or prolonged stress, your body shifts into protective mode. Physical changes in your body follow, gripping/ bracing through your diaphragm, jaw and deep hip flexors.

➡️ Once your body is holding that position, it becomes a loud voice in the conversation.

🧠 80% of your vagus nerve traffic goes from the body to the brain. Not the other way around.

So when a patient asks if they’re holding emotions in their hips…it’s not that the emotion got stored there. It’s that the original experience triggered the brace. And the brain-body communication got stuck in the loop.

📣 This is the piece both sides of the conversation keep missing.

Part 3 tomorrow ..why mindset work alone isn’t enough.

🫶🏽 your PT bestie

05/18/2026

New research says trauma isn’t stored in the body- it’s a prediction the brain keeps making shaped by genetics and past experiences.

In my world of pain science this is nothing new, but for patients who have sought deep relief from grief, autoimmune conditions and pain… it can feel harsh when you feel it IN your body.

After 16 years of clinical work, I agree with this research but it doesn’t complete the healing story.

A braced body reinforces the alarm system, so the prediction stays stuck because the body keeps confirming it.

You can’t only update your beliefs. You have to update the message the body is sending too.

This is why I always do both: pain science+ biomechanics and lots of nerve whispering 🫁🫶🏽

05/16/2026

💧Your apocrine sweat glands sit in your armpits, groin, and scalp. They aren’t wired to temperature like the rest of your sweat system. They’re directly wired to your sympathetic nervous system.

The smell isn’t about your hygiene habits it’s about chemistry. When you’re in chronic sympathetic dominance, these glands secrete differently: more proteins, lipids, and bacteria break down into stronger byproducts. Same body 🦠 different chemistry.

6 signs my clients with sympathetic dominance typically have at the same time:

1. Stronger body odor = changed sweat chemistry
2. Tight jaw = bracing pattern
3. Shallow breath = locked diaphragm
4. Hair shedding more = elevated stress hormone load
5. Gut flares with foods that used to be fine = vagal signal disruption
6. Sleep that won’t come even when exhausted = the alarm still running

Different (annoying) symptoms stemming from one system.

➡️ Once the alarm quiets, the chemistry shifts all of it.

Shifting brain body communication first is what accelerates my clients healing…from years of trying to figure it all out, to feeling like themselves again in a matter of weeks!

🧠💪

🫶🏽your PT bestie

05/12/2026

if your body is constantly buzzing, bracing, or breaking down, here’s why 💌
most women don’t realize these 9 signs are coming from the same place — a vagus nerve that can’t do its job because the diaphragm fascia is locked down 🫁
when the diaphragm doesn’t drop, your neck, traps, and chest lift your ribs 20,000+ times a day. no wonder you’re exhausted, wired, and flaring up.
swipe through 👉🏽 and notice how many you nod to. it’s not in your head. it’s in your breath mechanics 🫶🏽

02/15/2024

Happy Valentine’s Day loves!
🤍🩵💛🧡💜🩷
Spent all day in my happy place getting to treat my amazing patients.

Sending healing hugs to you all.

🫶🏽your PT bestie

02/06/2024

When pain or emotions are triggered we are faced with 2 choices:

1. Retreat
2. Progress

Retreating can take on different forms but is an attempt to feel safe when triggered. It’s hard wired in your survival response.

➡️ Seeking CONTROL when triggered in ourselves or the people around us in order to protect and create safety.
➡️ Retreat can also look like coping stress activities- mindless IG scrolling, checking phone, drinking, overeating.

🧠PROGRESS requires going inward to create safety.

➡️ Breaking the cycle of living trigger to trigger.
➡️Each signal or trigger is an invitation to heal our unregulated/ unresolved parts.

🌈Awareness is the first step, the second step is making a choice.

🫶🏽 your PT bestie

01/29/2024

All the feels connecting to your breath and body🫁✨🫶🏽

Which one do you feel the most, did I miss any?

The last one was HUGE for me..my bestie nicknamed me “Harmonious Helen”.
➡️ I hope I still sprinkle harmony everywhere I go, but from a position of wanting to and NOT NEEDING to.

😔 Appeasing and needing to fix situations, surrounding and problems is a STATE OF STRESS because you literally cannot take on any more stress you try to keep things “good”. AKA ( the perfect condition)

🤰🏽The Whole Foods story is a real patient story, ugh the worst looking..feeling pregnant and then ruminating about the awkwardness of the congratulations.

Healing your nervous system feels as comforting T+T embrace.

2 spots left in Brain Body Breath Program, starts THIs WEEK! Comment or DM “BBB” if you don’t want to miss it🎉

Address

Dana Point, CA
92629

Website

http://Activatedpt.com/

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